No way to refer to the vulnerable -- chicagotribune.com

No way to refer to the vulnerable -- chicagotribune.com

Posted using ShareThis

The "R" Word

Father's Day weekend, a facebook friend described in her status how she bought a giant cookie and had "Happy Father's Day" spelled out in icing for her husband, and the store spelled "Father's" wrong, more than once. One of her friends commented about the store clerk being retarded. I replied to her comment with my own about how using the "r" word is inappropriate. My friend responded by thanking me for catching the inappropriate comment and she removed it.

Several weeks ago, a facebook quiz popped up into my feed. One of my friends had taken a quiz called, "How Retarded Are You?" I hid that particular quiz from my feed and zapped an impulsive message to my friend, explaining the inappropriateness of it.

Imagine my embarrassment to overhear my own child using the word among friends a couple of weekends ago. I came down on him hard, right then. Maybe too hard. (What was he thinking? I still don't know. And why didn't the peers stop him?)

This morning, my child reports to me that last night, after his twin sister came to the back of the dugout briefly to congratulate him for a great hit and a scored run, one of the players in the dugout asked my son which of his sisters did he think is more retarded.

Arg.

These recent events have sparked some interesting discussion that continued this morning. My husband tried to explain that the boy last night may not have understood that we are more sensitive to the word than other families. My husband, in that moment, missed the point. (In all fairness to him, he and our son were trying to get out the door to another tournament game and were in a hurry. I hope they talked about it on their ride to the game.)

There is a mindset that people think it's okay to say the word retarded as long as you look around and make sure there's no one that might be offended. That's simply a wrong attitude.

The "R" word is like the "N" word. Inappropriate in any circumstance.

We're having more chats about it at our house. (Even families w/ members w/ disabilities deal with it.)

Here are a couple of web sites that offer more insight:

http://www.r-word.org/

http://www.csde.umb.edu/rs_r_word.html

And a blog entry of mine:

http://notnewtoautism.blogspot.com/2009/03/president-obama-and-special-olympics.html

Talk to your kids. Tell them to remove the "r" word from their vocabulary. Teach them to stand up to others who do, explaining the inappropriateness of the word.

Respectfully,

President Obama and Special Olympics

President Obama went on "Leno" last week, and compared his own poor bowling score to individuals who participate in Special Olympics. Media reports indicate that the president made a quick apology soon after the taping of the show to Tim Shriver, Chairman of the Special Olympics. Shriver graciously accepted the apology, but added, "words do hurt". I would like to add, words like that provide evidence of attitudes that need adjusting.

The chitchat on the internet is interesting. One "camp" is outraged. Another says forgive him and move on. Folks spoke up as being offended are being told to get over it by Obama supporters. I've seen it referred to as "un-PC". I've seen fingers pointed across party lines, folks with liberal leanings pointing fingers at more conservative folks, implying that politics are getting in the way of the conservative folks' ability to be fair in this situation.

A lot of people are missing the point. There's an insidious and real message behind WHY he chose to compare himself with individuals who represent Special Olympics, and the time is NOW for every single one of us to examine our own beliefs and perceptions and make changes if we need to. This is an attitude that should not be excused, period.

Here's what's wrong with what President Obama said: He used a population that society silently yet obviously marginalizes in order to jokingly marginalize himself about his bowling score. He made himself the butt of a joke by comparing himself to a group of people that society considers less-than.

That's no secret just because it is not discussed aloud.

Check out Wikipedia's definition of self depreciating humor: "Self-deprecating humor is humor which relies on the observation of something negative about the person delivering it."

It's the unspoken assumption that that needs to be acknowledged and changed, the assumption that individuals who participate in an organization like Special Olympics are "less than", that something about them is a "negative".

The issue of marginalizing individuals with developmental delays, disabilities, mental challenges is not new. But it is wrong, as wrong as the way African Americans were marginalized in the United States in the past.

There's irony in the fact that the words came from the first African American president. There's irony in the perception that he's our most progressive president.

Letting slide President Obama's slip of the tongue gives us all a free pass to justify thinking of some individuals as "other" or "less than".

His slip of the tongue is an AWARENESS OPPORTUNITY! Now is the time for ADVOCACY!

My daughter, who happens to have autism, and has an opportunity to participate in Special Olympics in the fall, is NOT less than. She's not a negative, and neither is any other human being.

Thank you, Kathie Snow and Disability is Natural, for being the catalyst to begin to change my thinking. I still have some work to do on myself, and I see that there is a lot of work left to do on attitudes, in general.